Mitchell_Porter comments on And the Winner is... Many-Worlds!

1Eliezer_Yudkowsky12 June 2008 06:05AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (4)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Mitchell_Porter27 September 2008 01:12:00PM0 points [-]

I have been directed to a new, very short paper from Frank Tipler, "Testing Many-Worlds Quantum Theory By Measuring Pattern Convergence Rates", in which we have yet another alleged experimental test for MWI. Specifically, Tipler thinks he can derive the Born probabilities. He starts by distinguishing between the idealized asymptotic scatter of infinitely many measurements (say, in the double-slit experiment) and the growing actual pattern of always-finitely-many measurements, and then uses Bayes to say something quantitative about the rate at which the former approximates the latter. Without having examined the argument in any depth, I am going to predict that if it holds up, it will be possible to reproduce it within a non-MWI framework (e.g. standard quantum measurement theory). But Bayesian many-worlders may wish to look at the details.